Archive for June, 2009

Another Summit tackled here in The Heart of Dixie. May 17th 2009 Monte Sano Mountain, though not a challenging one to concur, made for a great gathering of geocachers and a chance to munch on a great cheese burger. Another good turn out with, just B0B, Rick618, mtbikedirtygirl, mtncachers, jrellis, Hares Ear, garberc, The_Rebel, David, KatanaGuy, moxymissy and myself Clarkbowman along with my dog Tebow all making the trip. After enjoying our lunch, several of us then hit the trails to locate some of the many caches hidden on the mountain. We have 2 more events coming up in the near future to tackle more summits here in the South and hope to have a great turn out at both. You can see the Event page for Monte Sano Summit here http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=74187860-3a45-4bdb-99ce-db40fa15708b&log=y&decrypt=

My wife (JustJan) gave me a night’s stay at LeConte Lodge for my 40th birthday this year as a gift. Mt. LeConte is the second highest point in the Great Smoky Mountain Park on the Tennessee side. It’s the fifth highest peak east of the Mississippi River and has the highest face east of the Mississippi. The lodge is located on top of the mountain, about 0.5 mile from the summit (High Point). It’s a little more rustic than your typical lodge, with no running water, toilets or electricity in your cabin/room. No showers. And no parking lot….. To get to the lodge, you’ve gotta take one of the trails up the mountain by foot!

We took the Rainbow Falls Trail and connected to the Bullhead Trail for our final approach to the lodge. This path is about 6.5 miles gaining about 3200′ of elevation from the trailhead to the lodge. (It’s still a little bit of up to the summit.) Along the way we enjoy sweeping views, rushing creeks, and many waterfalls, including the spectacula Rainbow Falls. We were able to see quite the array of rhododendrun, mountain laurel, and wild azalias along the way. Also, along the way, a fairly large black bear got to enjoy our discomfort in being WAY to close to him. It was a 4.5 hour hike, but we weren’t really rushing, stopping to enjoy the trip and take pictures often.

When we finally got to the top, we rested for a few minutes before heading up to High Point to add our rock to the summit pile, visit the Cliff Tops and Myrtle Point, and most importantly, EAT a CHEESEBURGER! It’s pretty up here and I would recommend that if you get the chance!

We took the Alum Cave Bluff Trail (4.5 mi) back down to our car. That was a fantastic choice. We not only got the best sweeping views of the trip here, but we also got to visit Inspiration Point, the Arch, the Eye of the Needle, and of course the Alum Cave Blufs. This trail is very beautiful, scenic, and geologically interesting. I would recommend this trail to anyone capable of the trip!

The vacation to Paris had been planned for months…..we researched potential cheeseburger summits…..and decided upon an ascent of the mighty Montmartre – but we were scooped! A funicular-assisted, clandestine ascent beat our trip by a few weeks. Unable to develop a Plan B, we decided to repeat their stirring ascent of Montmartre – but this time without the funicular!

We began with an alpine start; waking at 10 am (jet lag). Our first visit of the day was to the Musee d’Orsay. From the balcony we got our first views of Montmartre.

The Metro provided transport to the base of the mountain. Fortunately, the signs clearly indicate the location of “Butte Montmartre.”

While the rest of the families scaled the dizzying heights, Hon and sirloinofbeef scoured the area for proper Parisian Cheeseburgers. We queried a kebab stand owner and he directed us to 2 possibilities – a McDonald’s one block away or a burger joint three blocks away. That’s an easy choice! We dashed past the myriad shoe stalls to House Burger – our expedition outfitter.

Burgers in hand we scaled Montmartre to visit the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur.

At the top, standing among a throng of tourists, we enjoyed the views of Paris and the wonderful House Burger Cheeseburgers.

My mom and I hiked up Mount Utsayantha in Stamford NY and both enjoyed our cheeseburgers while overlooking the village of Stamford from 3200 feet up. A favorite spot for hang gliders, Utsayantha is a mountain of legend. Some background can be found here: http://www.hanggliding.org/wiki/Mount_Utsayantha

Awesome idea guys!!! This makes our hiking even more fun! Can’t wait to bag another peak…Cheeseburger in hand for the good of Summit Cheeseburger!! Even better is we can work off our cheeseburgers on the way down 🙂

Now that school is out and I no longer have a coach planning my every move, it was great to get back to the White Mountains today. I fearlessly grabbed three burgers which were improvised last minute and headed up NH 116 to the Mt. Kinsman Trail. Now, an advisory to anyone else who might want to hike there this summer, the trailhead has moved south, so, if you are heading north on 116 you will pass a lot of open pasture on your left, then there will be a big red barn (with no red house attached) also on your left. About the time you see this, a poorly maintained driveway leads off to the right, and that is where the trailhead is. If you get to the tennis camp, you’ve gone to far, but only by one driveway.

I took my burgers and first headed up to Bald Peak, off on a spur path, to eat. The views were lovely, and it was a nice diversion, though to this point the trail had followed an old logging road most of the way.

Alas, steepness ensued, the Kinsman Ridge Trail was reached, and it was time to hit the Kinsmans themselves. Not being hungry, I gave the North Peak a pass at first, carrying on to South Kinsman, nearly a mile further on, where I had my next burger. I backtracked to North Kinsman to finish up my day. There were very few hikers up there; I met a couple of men who were running up the trail, neither of whom appeared to have ever eaten a cheeseburger in their lives.

In short, this is a great hike, and I had a beautiful day in which to do it. The photos are in chronological order.

The Great Smoky Mountain National Park boasts many beautiful summits that represent virgin territory for cheeseburger summiteers. This region of the Appalacian mountains is a temperate rain forest with many of the summits receiving more than 8′ of rain each year. We were so fortunate to observe a small part of this. It’s only a half mile walk from the parking area where we made our 330′ ascent to the summit. I’ve been here a number of times and it seems that each visit is different. Some days you can see for miles, while others you can’t see 100′. As we left the car, I feared today would be like the later. With thus summit being the highest in the park at 6643′ hoped for the former. As we walked up the path, we couldn’t see the people we were hearing about 50′ away. When we got to our destination, it appeared our only rewards would be our cheeseburgers and pride in our accomplishment. As you may see from the pics of us eating, there’s not much of a view behind us. (You should be able to see Mt LeConte in the background, looking to the summit my wife and I plan to attack tomorrow.). As luck would have it some of the storm blew off shortly after we finished our burgers, leaving behind the “smoke” covered peaks and valleys shown in the final photo. Watching the storm sweep out and then watching the next roll in was absolutely awesome.

The kids want me to make sure I properly claim credit for being the first people to summit a cheeseburger in North Carolina AND the GSMNP. My wife and I allowed them the first bite to own this credit to themselves for all of time to come.

Today was going to be the last nice day until early next week, so Holly and I decided to go hiking. We wanted something relatively close by, not too strenuous, and with a view, so we settled on Alander Mountain, in the South Taconics, near the MA/CT/NY corner. It’s only about a 6-mile round trip hike, and with less than 800′ of total climbing.

It was a cool breezy day, and perfect for hiking. We crossed several streams that were running pretty well, and the trail was wet in spots after a lot of recent rain, but it was generally very easy walking. After the last steep climb to the ridge, we had several options for views. First, we headed north on the South Taconic Trail and found this view to the east and northeast.

Knowing that the best views were off the west side of the ridge, we turned around here and headed back south until we found them. The Catskills are off in the distance to the west.

Looking more to the south, we saw Ashley, Frissell, and Brace, from left to right. Ashley Hill (left) is in MA and Brace Mountain (right) is in NY. Mount Frissell (center) has its summit in Massachusetts, but its southern shoulder is the highest point in Connecticut.

The laurel was beginning to bloom up here on the ridge, and in a week or two, this whole area will be ablaze in various shades of pink.

Near the summit, we met a large group of Oriental hikers who were cooking a very fancy lunch. The smell of Chinese take-out was wafting across the summit on the wind, and we knew something was up, but were surprised to find them having such a feast.

We headed a little further south to the true summit, and found the view there somewhat obscured by vegetation, and not as good as the others we had seen. No Chinese food here, so I settled for a cold cheeseburger to claim the summit.

From there, the trip back to the car was uneventful, but we found the usual hoped-for ice cream stop closed for the day.